This is Part 1 of the episode transcript.
Ron: Hello and welcome to a Christmas Special episode of Stereo Geeks. I'm Ron.
Mon: And I’m Mon. On this What’s New episode, we're featuring:
· Happiest Season
· The Christmas House
· The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special
· Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey
Mon: We will be discussing spoilers for each of these films, so if you haven't seen them yet, watch them and then come back to this episode.
Ron: We start off with Happiest Season. To preface this, we don't usually watch Christmas films. That's not a tradition for us. So, this was a whole new experience.
Mon: I think the last Christmas film that I can remember watching was probably Iron Man 3. And yes, that counts.
Ron: That was in July.
Mon: Like most people, we caught this film mostly because of the hype surrounding it. It's a film that features a lesbian couple, starring Kristen Stewart as Abby and Mackenzie Davis as Harper, her partner. Abby is not a fan of Christmas. She has a traumatic past attached to this time of year. Harper, on the other hand, is from a small town where Christmas and Christmas traditions are a huge thing. And she's desperate to take Abby back home to meet her family. There's only one big problem.
Ron: Harper is not yet out to her family. She's basically told them that Abby is her roommate. And it leads to all sorts of shenanigans once she arrives home.
Mon: It doesn't help that Harper springs this information on Abby on the way to her house. So, Abby has no time to prepare.
Ron: And it's made worse by the fact that Abby is actually planning to ask Harper's parents for permission to propose to her, and she's going do it on Christmas Day.
Mon: So much for that plan.
Ron: She's even bought the ring.
Mon: Also starring in this film is Aubrey Plaza as Riley, Harper’s ex. Dan Levy as John, Abby's temporary pet sitter and writing agent. The film is written and directed by Clea Duvall and also co-written by Mary Holland.
Ron: So, what is the hype about this film? Well, we don't usually get Christmas movies about queer characters. Not only does this film centre a queer character, but their relationship is kind of the motivation for all the events in this film.
Mon: I agree with you. With this kind of cast, and this kind of hype, and this film is on Hulu. It's making a queer Christmas film mainstream. Does it live up to the hype?
Ron: Well, we enjoyed it. In fact, we started watching the film. We stopped it because we thought we were going to do some work, and then we just couldn't stop watching.
Mon: It's the kind of film that really draws you in. Because you're kind of watching what's going to happen next. It's got a little bit of everything. It's got humor, it's got drama. There are lots of sweet, emotional, romantic moments. There are also some strong messages which need to be shared in today's divisive world.
Ron: I like the pacing of the story. That's what really worked for me. You don't get much setup time, but you don't need it. This is a couple; they've been together for a while. That's all you need to get into the story. It rather swiftly moves to the action, and the action is, for the most part really funny. Once Abby and Harper get to Harper's parents’ house, it's hilarious, because they think that Abby is just a roommate. So, they're kind of treating her a little bit weirdly, especially because Harper has managed to tell them Abby's traumatic past. So, they keep treating her very strangely. It's hilarious but it's also a little bit disturbing. Like, you do not want to hang out with these people.
Mon: The way the parents deal with Abby, it's like handling her with kid gloves, but she's an adult woman. And, she’s had to face life and situations on her own. But I think it's also a reflection of how these people are quite sheltered and cloistered. Maybe a little bit narrow-minded. And Abby just goes along with it because she loves Harper. And you know what they say, right? You don't just marry a person, you marry a family.
Ron: When you meet this family though, you're like, dump the person! Because, as well meaning as Harper’s parents try to be, it seems like they latch on to very particular aspects of Abby's history that resonate with them. But they get the context wrong. So, they keep calling her an orphan, which is technically right, but she lost her parents when she was 19. It's not like she grew up in an orphanage, and they keep asking her, was it like this when you grew up in the orphanage. And that's not what happened, she was technically an adult. And there's all these little moments that make you wonder, whether they're actually listening, or whether they've got their own script in their head and they're working towards that.
Mon: As we know, the holiday season can be very stressful. And, Harper’s mom, she's in charge of setting up this huge party. Harper's father is running for mayor. He needs to get this donor on board. So, there's a lot of stress. The family sort of has to show up as being this perfect, idyllic, American family. And, it's obvious that they're not because they're just human beings.
Ron: And there's no room for error. And that's not how people work; that's not how families work.
Mon: Especially not during the stressful holiday season.
Ron: There are all these little insights you get as you meet more members of the family. So, there's Harper who's obviously very much the favourite child. But then you need Jane, her older sister, who is very quirky, quite different, and seems to be treated like the IT guy. And then you meet the eldest, Sloane. Now Sloane seems to be very well put-together. She and her husband seem to have a very similar temperament. They've got these two children who never seem to smile. From the looks of it, they appear to be this picture-perfect nuclear family. But for her parents, Sloane has become something of a disappointment.
Mon: Anytime Sloane is introduced to anyone, she's introduced as a family person, her previous qualifications as a lawyer are forgotten, her current entrepreneurship is forgotten. It's almost like, because she didn't follow the family script, she's no longer the favourite, nor that loved.
Ron: And this kind of scripted lifestyle starts, it's not something that you can continue for a very long time. We start seeing the cracks early on. But by the end of the film, it's full on broken.
Mon: All this makes the film sound quite dark and depressing, but it's really not. It's the nuances and the little character asides that make you realize that not everything is as picture perfect as the family would like you to believe. There's an underlying thread of love that used to be, but isn't there anymore.
And then there's Abby who doesn't exactly know what she's doing with this family, how to fit in with this family, especially since they don't know what her connection is to Harper. And what her future intentions are thrown.
Ron: Throw into the mix, Riley, Harper’s ex. Now, Abby doesn't know much about what happened between Riley and Harper, But she immediately finds herself gravitating towards this woman. And we can't really blame her. Yes, Harper is cute, but Riley is quite stunning.
Mon: Riley is elegant, brave, strong person. She's a go-getter. She has not allowed the small-mindedness of the town that she's from and the one that she lives in to get in her way. And she's looked up to. Her parents have accepted her, and even Harper's family, they look up to her because, you know, she's because.
Ron: She's a doctor. She's well-known. And she's out and proud. That's something Harper has never been. And that, as we find out, was the actual rift between Harper and Riley. It just brings Riley and Abby even closer.
But despite everything that happens, in the end, we get a happy ending.
Mon: But is it though?
Ron: So, let's talk about that ending, because there has been so much discussion about it on the internet. In fact, I was surprised that one simple Christmas film got this much traction among viewers on the internet. What is going on?
Mon: This film is essentially a coming out film. The coming out part happens very late into the film. In fact, at some points, you begin to wonder that it's probably not going to happen at all. They'll just survive this Christmas, and maybe this relationship between Abby and Harper may not even continue. But in the end, Harper does come out. By the end of the film, pretty much every family member has come out with some kind of secret or the other. Be it a secret desire to learn karate. An impending failed marriage. A love of being quirky. Or the fact that, trying to put up a facade has become the father's one and only aim in life. Because he was worried that his family wouldn't be proud of him. So there's a lot of soul bearing, that really happens within the last 15 minutes almost, of the film. And after it all, Abby accepts Harper. She still goes through with the proposal. And we get the happy ending.
But why do we think it may not be such a happy ending? Because Harper isn't a worthy girlfriend!
Ron: Harsh.
Mon: But it's true. Let's look at it from the beginning of the film. The film starts off with Harper and Abby on a Christmas house trail. It's so obvious that Abby doesn't want to be there, as we've mentioned, she does not like this time of year. She doesn't like to celebrate Christmas that much. She's obviously there just to please Harper. And nothing about this trail is going very well either. And then, when the half line happy break away tour group, Harper insists that Abby join her on some random person's roof so that they can look at all the lights. It's a beautiful view, but Abby didn't want to do that.
So, it becomes evident that in this relationship, Abby is very circumspect, she's very content with what she's doing with her own life. But Harper is always pushing her; pushing her to do stuff that maybe she's not very comfortable with. Now, there's one thing about being in a relationship with somebody who helps you break out of your shell and spread your wings. And there's another thing to be in a relationship with somebody who just wants to get their own way. With, Abby and Harper, it always felt like Harper just got her own way.
Ron: That's one way of looking at it.
Mon: And then what happens? Harper is the one who insists that Abby goes and meets her parents. Okay. Abby is not initially looking forward to that. She does turn her down. But then she changes her mind and she agrees. Wouldn't that have been the perfect occasion for Harper to explain that she hasn't come out to her family. She doesn't know why, but she'd still like them to meet Abby, so that they can become comfortable with the idea that this wonderful person, who is Abby, in her words basically, is their daughter’s partner. But she doesn't do. She waits till the last moment; Abby can't get out of there. They’re literally in the middle of nowhere in Harper’s car, when Harper mentions that yes, she is still in the closet with her family. That seems a bit unfair on Abby.
Ron: Because by Harper being in the closet, and then taking Abby to meet her family, she essentially puts Abby in the closet, as well. There’s this really funny moment when Abby is hiding in a closet while she's trying to get to Harper in the house, and Harper’s mother finds her in the closet. I mean, it's a humorous moment but it's also very obvious that this is exactly what's happening in this relationship.
Mon: During the Christmas stay, Abby becomes so frustrated because Harper is spending so much time with her friends, especially her ex, Connor, who is obviously the family favourite. And Harper isn’t letting Abby in. At one point, in the middle of a party, Abby actually calls it off. And you think, this is it, she's seen the light. She's now going to go running to Riley, who is obviously the better choice. But she doesn't!
Because, Dan Levy’s John gives this amazing speech about how everyone's journey is different. While Abby's journey is one way, his journey was completely different, and Harper’s journey has yet to begin. And it's a very touching moment, and his words are very powerful. The writers have written a great speech. But it is under done by the fact that Harper is not worth it.
Ron: Throughout this film, Harper doesn't come across as a nice person. It's not just the fact that she's being difficult about the situation; she doesn't do anything to redeem herself. Because when she is finally outed, which is not a good thing to happen, she immediately denies it. And if it was just the first time, and something that happens to her, so she acted out in the moment, I can understand. But that's exactly what she had done to Riley when they were young, and she was doing it to Abby again. And you can just see how crestfallen Abby is and how Riley kind of feels a little bit validated for feeling so bad. Because Harper clearly hasn't changed.
Mon: It's completely fine to be an adult and not have come out to your family, because a lot of families are like that, they are too conservative, they are too And it's just a protective skin. That's fine. But the way Harper treats Abby, that's the problem.
Ron: Having said all that, Clea Duvall, writer and director of this film, had a few important points about why she decided to go with the Harper-Abby ending. One of the reasons why she went with this direction was because queer films tend not to have happy endings for the central queer couple. Now it's not like no clear film in the last 10 years has, but for the majority of the time, we do see, it's like bury your gaze, or somebody breaks up or somebody find somebody else. So, she wanted Abby and Harper to end up together. She also said that we’re basically meeting Harper n the four worst days of her life. So, this isn't really a reflection of what Harper is like usually.
I found that quite an interesting point because there must be some reason why Abby is so desperate to hang on to this relationship, despite Harper being quite awful to her during this entire break.
And another thing now. Now, if you saw any of those tweets about this film, you would know that a lot of people were shipping Abby and Riley. Honestly, we felt the same way. Dump Harper, be with Riley!
But there was another reason why Duvall did not want to go with that pairing. In films with queer characters, we tend to see a third queer character, only in the sense that they come in as a second love interest. She didn't want that. So Duvall wanted to showcase a queer relationship that was not romantic, and was just a friendship. Because queer people tend to be good friends with other queer people. And we don't get to see that that often.
Also, the way the relationship progresses. They do stuff in queer places. They go to the queer bar which is lots of fun and very colorful and so interactive and engaging. And it's such a contrast to the very straight bar where Harper and her friends have met up, which is stark and dark, and everything is in its place. So yeah, these are the few points that Clea Duvall made, which has honestly made me change the way I looked at this movie.
Mon: I appreciate the creative point of view. But it's hard to be invested in somebody who doesn't have any respect for their own partner. And that's what I struggled when it came to Harper. We completely understand all these things. We completely understand the thinking behind keeping the Abby and Harper relationship. But we need to root for Harper, which we don't do. Because we may have met Harper on the four worst days of her life. But we needed some buildup to show that she wasn't always like this. There's no point telling us after the fact.
Ron: But all in all, this was a fun experience.
Mon: Yeah, we've been quite negative about it but this was a fun, immersive, joyful, cozy little experience. And it just happened to have queer characters.
Ron: I think my only criticism with this film would be that it was extremely white. At least they tried to do something a little bit different; Sloane's husband and their children are Black. So that's a good thing. The problem with having a film that is centered on a white family is that you pretty much always get everybody of the same race. And if your family is white, you're gonna get a lot of white characters. But looking past that, this was a great, fun Christmas movie to watch.
Mon: Another film that came on our radar was The Christmas House. This is a Hallmark movie which we thought was centered around a gay couple who were returning home to celebrate Christmas. Uhh… turns out we were wrong.
Ron: Okay, so let's start by saying that we did not know Hallmark Christmas movies were a thing until this year. I have never seen this many ads for Hallmark Christmas movies. You could not escape them!
Mon: The reason why this film came with a lot of hype was because in 2019, Hallmark actually pulled an ad from their network which featured lesbian couple in it. So, for that same network to actually, not only include a gay couple but have them as part of the main cast for a Christmas film, seemed like a huge progressive step forward.
Ron: Yes, and the marketing definitely focused on this gay couple being the centre of this film. If you watch the ads, you don't actually see the rest of the characters, you do see them.
Mon: If you showed me the poster for this film, I wouldn’t recognize it because, where was Jonathan Bennett on the poster? He was in all the trailers, but he's definitely not on the poster.
Ron: And then we sat down to watch the film.
Mon: The first scene of this film? Who’s this guy?
Ron: So, we quickly found out that The Christmas House was actually about Robert Buckley’s Mike Mitchell, and not really about his gay brother, Brandon.
Mon: So, Mike is a TV actor. He's playing a very popular character. Unfortunately, his show is on the rocks. During the Christmas season, he returns home. His parents have this rather frosty welcome. They're not telling them something. They're very keen to revive the Christmas house from their youth. But why? Those machinations come to the fore as Mike’s parents discuss more about their current situation. Their mom has just retired; retirement life is not working well with her. So, they want to revive the Christmas house one last time before the parents split and they sell the house. And the house is being sold by Mike's childhood crush, Andi Cruz, played by Ana Ayora.
Ron: Brandon and his husband, Jake, played by Brad Harder, they don't really have much to do in the story, which was even more disappointing because he kept reading these interviews where Jonathan Bennett was so excited about the fact that there was a gay couple and this was going to start a whole new revolution in Hallmark movies. Ya, no.
Mon: So, Brandon and Jake, they have their own worries during this Christmas season. They've been trying to adopt for several years; three adoptions have fallen through. And they're currently in the process of another one. They're really, really holding out hope, but they won't tell their family because they don't want to get them excited. I love that they have their own little story, and that their relationship is normal. It's completely accepted. Nobody makes any comments about it. But within the context of the film itself? You don't see these characters really doing anything. They don't drive the plot forward. They have these small moments of emotional beats, but that's it. They're very much in the background. In fact, Jake hardly has any scenes at all.
Ron: Jake's only triumph in this movie is when he manages to get the lights working after a whole bunch of them just blew out. But that's it.
Mon: Jake is a really sweet character. He's the kind of partner who comes home to the parents and he's the immediate favorite because he acquiesces to everything, he's very excited about everything. Whereas Mike and Brandon, having gone through creating a Christmas house and that too, they have a very, very short deadline now, they are not that enthused. But Jake is raring to go.
Ron: The relationship between Brandon and Jake is very sweet. And I like the fact that we see this physical closeness between them. They're hugging each other, they're holding hands, they’re kissing each other. There's no reason for anybody to make a big deal about that. They’re just an accepted part of this family. The thing is, with films that aren't usually catering to queer audiences, it does feel a bit tokenistic. There aren't any other queer characters in this film. Especially when the driving romance of this film is Mike and Andy, a straight couple, because we have never seen that before.
Mon: What surprised me most was that Brandon and Jake were pretty much written out of every scene. When, Sharon Lawrence’s Phyllis Mitchell, who is the mom, tells Mike that she's struggling with retirement, she and the father separating, she's selling the house. It’s just Mike being told all this. Did Brandon do something wrong? Why isn't he being told all this? This is stuff that affects him as well. But then later, it seems like Brandon already knows this stuff. So was he told in advance? Was he told in between scenes? What is going on with this writing.
Ron: It seems like the film was created around Mike and his relationship with his parents. And then suddenly they were like, there's room here for some more characters. Let's make them gay.
Mon: And let's market that so that people will actually tune in and watch this movie.
Ron: Which is exactly what we did. We sat down to watch this film because we had heard so much about the first gay couple in a Hallmark movie. And it did feel like a letdown.
Mon: From the get-go, it felt like we tuned into the wrong film. But then it was the right film and just the wrong couple.
Ron: So then, we have to question, was the marketing right or was it wrong?
Mon: The marketing was smart.
Ron: The marketing was smart, but the thing is that now I feel like I can't trust Hallmark.
Mon: Oh, I agree with you.
Ron: Yes, I'm excited about the fact that we're getting more queer representation in Christmas movies. We've just seen Happiest Season which also had queer representation. But, Happiest Season was about the queer couple. They had four queer characters in that firm. This one, it just doesn't do what it says on the box. And that's not fair. This feels a bit like queerbaiting, except we do get queer representation, but it's just not as important as you made it out to be.
Mon: Now I agree with you on that. If Jake and Brandon had just spent a little bit more time on screen. If they'd been involved in the family dynamics, in the family announcements, I would have been fine with that. We don't need to see them being in the relationship. We already know that. The best thing about the way Jonathan Bennett and Brad Harder played these characters, is that they felt very lived-in. You felt like they had been together for a long time, that they'd been trying to get a family started for a long time. And that his parents have had Jake in their lives for a long time. But all of that is implicit. All of that is due to the acting. It's not there in the writing, it’s not there in the direction, it’s not there on the screen.
Ron: Also, how come we don't get to see Jake hanging out with Mike? Like, if he's been a part of the family for such a long time, why doesn't he have a relationship with his husband's Brother? Why don't we get scenes with him and the parents? We don't even get scenes with Brandon and his parents! Mike is always a part of every scene, though. So yeah, this is a straight movie with a gay couple in it.
Mon: Also, coming off of Happiest Season, the production values in this film were a bit of a shock.
Ron: Is it just me or are Hallmark movies all that weird fuzzy color? What is happening with that? Do they use a filter?
Mon: I don't know. It's just really weird looking.
Ron: And you could tell that it was a Hallmark movie because of that. Like, it feels like your glasses are frosted over or something. It's so strange. It's a completely different experience.
Mon: It definitely is. I quite liked Andy Cruz, the character. She could have come across as just any ex-crush. She could have just come across as the single mom, but she's not. She's so happy to be back in town. She's so happy to be helping the Mitchells. She loves having her son around. And she's kicking off her own little enterprise. She was a fun character to watch.
Ron: I also like the fact that she's also Latina, because this film, again, essentially, a white family so we needed somebody outside of that to be a person of color. We do get to see her and her mom, and they make all this beautiful Mexican food. So, yeah, that was great to see.
Mon: And there's this point in the film where Mike is trying to help Andy get her business off the ground, get the word out there. So, he makes an advertisement with her son. And when he shows it to her, he's very excited. She's grateful, but also a little bit upset that he didn't ask her and she's not in it! I like that little moment because a lot of times with these rom-coms or these romantic films, the women come across as very one-dimensional. It's like they only want one thing, they only want the big wedding, or they want the great honeymoon. No, Andi is a character in her own right, with her own thoughts and ambitions.
Ron: She gets to be a complete character, which you don't always get to see in films like this, and I really, really appreciate that.
Mon: The ending of the film was probably one of the cringiest ones that I've seen this year. I guess it's par for the course for a Hallmark movie, I'm not sure? What I did like is that far too often, Hollywood or American films denigrate the small-town experience. It's always about getting away from there and going to the big city. Mike decides to balance both his worlds. And I really liked that about this film. He decides to commute back and forth from New York and his hometown, so that he can keep his family house, he can be closer to Andi and her son. So, I appreciate the fact that they’re kind of changing the messaging in 2020.
Ron: Yeah, those are the nice little bits that really made me think that somebody had put some thought into the writing. But it's just the rest of the film that you're like, what happened there? I mean, even the denouement, everything gets solved on Christmas Day. I get that it's a Christmas movie, but not everything is gonna happen on Christmas Day. Who is working on Christmas Day?
Having said all that, it was certainly a learning experience for us. This is our first Hallmark Christmas movie, and hopefully next year, there'll be loads more queer characters and more representation in Hallmark films. Then, we'll be talking about that.
Mon: I hope so. I hope this is the start of many great things.
Read the transcript for Part 2 here.